Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for recording a plurality of movies to create a set of movies.
Description of the Related Art
In a series of image capturing operations in which movies recorded according to image capturing instructions issued at different timings are recorded in association with one another, in some cases, the recording times and the number of movies to be recorded are set in advance. In addition, there has been proposed a method for ending movie recording upon the set recording time elapse irrespective of a user operation, or ending the series of image capturing operations in response to the preset number of movies being recorded.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-208761 discloses a method of selecting a situation in which shooting is to be performed, from among a plurality of situations included in a preset scenario, performing shooting for each situation, and recording a series of situations as one project. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-160628 discloses a method of displaying an elapsed time from recording start by arranging a bar near a screen during recording of a movie for which a recording time is predetermined, and changing a display color of the bar in such a manner as to pass a vertex or an index of each side every one second or 0.5 seconds.
Once the above-described series of recording operations ends, a user can obtain a set of movies constituted by the series of recorded movies, without editing the recorded movies. Thus, if recording is performed for the set recording time, or if the set number of movies are recorded, the user can complete a set of movies.
Nevertheless, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-208761, although a movie of a recording-finished situation and a movie of a recording-unfinished situation can be checked when selecting a situation, during movie recording, neither the progress of the movie recording nor the progress of movie recording among a plurality of movies can be identified. In contrast, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-160628, while a movie is being recorded, the progress of the movie under recording can be identified, but Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-160628 fails to disclose a method for displaying, in a case in which a plurality of set movies is recorded, the progress of movie recording among the plurality of movies.
There is a movie recording method of applying a set effect. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-77026 proposes an imaging apparatus capable of presetting a recording number of movie files to be recorded and a recording time of each movie file. The technique described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-77026 receives a movie recording start instruction of a movie by the press of a release button. In addition, if a preset recording time elapses, or if the release button is pressed before the recording time elapse, the movie recording is stopped. On the other hand, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-193063, there is a movie recording method for generating a movie with a slow motion effect by recording, at low frame rate, a movie recorded at high frame rate.
In the movie recording described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-77026, when it is assumed that a preset effect is applied to the recorded movie as in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-193063, if the image recording is casually stopped by the same operation as that of the movie recording start instruction before the preset recording time elapse, a movie with the set recording time cannot be obtained. As a result, the obtained movie may not have the preset effect at an adequate level. Thus, a high-quality movie may not be obtained. For example, during movie recording for applying a slow motion effect to a movie recorded for 2 seconds, if the movie recording is casually stopped halfway, the resultant movie with the slow motion effect may have only 1 second.